‘I don't think you can do it' – Rory McIlroy reveals why he ‘shot down' Ryder Cup captaincy amid Keegan Bradley dilemma
TEEING OFF 'I don't think you can do it' – Rory McIlroy reveals why he 'shot down' Ryder Cup captaincy amid Keegan Bradley dilemma
MASTERS champion Rory McIlroy revealed he has already 'shot down' the prospect of becoming a playing Ryder Cup captain in the future.
The Holywood hero was Europe's leading points scorer in their victory in Rome two years ago and said the idea had already been raised with him but he rejected it out of hand.
World No 2 McIlroy, 36, has plenty of time left at the top as a player, but the doubling-up conundrum is one facing United States captain Keegan Bradley — whose form this year has elevated him to 12th in the world and 10th on America's qualification list.
McIlroy — who was the first player to automatically qualify for Europe's team for next month's event at Bethpage in New York — said: 'I've been asked to do that and I've turned it down
'The idea of me being a playing captain sometime soon has come up and I've shot it down straight away because I don't think you can do it.
'If you'd have said it 20 years ago I'd say it was probably possible to do.
'But how big of a spectacle it is and everything that's on the line in a Ryder Cup now, I just think it would be a very difficult position to be in.
'There's a lot of things that people don't see that the captain does the week of the Ryder Cup, especially now that the Ryder Cup has become so big.
'The captain's only going to be able to play one session on Friday, one session on Saturday.
'Would you rather not have a player that has the flexibility to go twice if he's playing well?'
Today, McIlroy will tee off alongside world No 1 and recently crowned Open champion Scottie Scheffler in the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club outside Baltimore.
The Ireland Olympian opted to skip the opening event of the FedEx Cup as he knew he was already guaranteed a spot in the PGA Tour's season-ending Tour Championship next week — and that drew some criticism.
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However, McIlroy argued his year is far from over as — in addition to the Ryder Cup — he will head back to the DP World Tour for a number of events, including the Irish Open at the K Club next month and BMW Championship at Wentworth. He will then try to win his seventh Race to Dubai title in November.
He added: 'A lot of the guys aren't 18 years into their professional career.
'I feel like I'm in a little bit of a different position.
'I'm playing nine times between now and the end of the year, so I've still got a pretty busy stretch coming up and I just think that extra week off will do me good with the events coming up.'
Justin Rose's play-off victory over JJ Spaun on Sunday guaranteed his place on Luke Donald's Ryder Cup team.
But the Englishman — now preparing for his SIXTH Ryder Cup, having won four — said he had not been putting too much pressure on himself after being given a heads-up by Donald.
Rose said: 'Their preference was for me to be on the team, I just needed to kind of give them some decent evidence to sort of get me on the team.
'I haven't been putting myself under a lot of pressure really because of that, because I felt like playing a little bit better in Scotland and the Open was sort of enough to make sure they knew my game was still right there.'
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